Products formulated for use in the personal care industry include many ingredients. In recent years, many products have included silicones to obtain certain advantages. The silicones are easy to rub out, softening the skin and providing lubricity, glossy appearance, and smoothness. They also provide a water barrier and are not easily washed away. However, they are not oily or sticky and the film allows the skin to breathe. The silicones provide these advantages while being inert and safe to use. However, they tend to flow from or are easily rubbed off the skin. One method of introducing silicones into personal care products would be to incorporate them in a compatible and stable gel which could be mixed with other ingredients in the formulation of personal care products while the resulting film still retains the excellent properties of the silicone oils. When silicones are added to conventional gelling agents such as vegetable or animal waxes, paraffin, or low molecular weight ethylene vinyl acetate copolymers, the exhibit limited compatibility and often lose the attractive features of the silicone oils.
The present invention relates to new gels found to be useful in personal care formulations which inherently provide the advantages of silicones and represent improvements over gels of the prior art.